1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates, generally, to temporary structures for supporting heavy loads over bodies of water or wetlands. More particularly, it relates to a modular heavy load-supporting structure having cylindrical sections that can be laid end to end quickly to save time and materials.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It was a common practice before wetlands conservation was a concern to dredge out large sections of wetlands as needed when building roadways or bridges over such wetlands. Such dredging enabled barges to carry heavy equipment to the jobsite as the job site progressed across the landscape.
Over time, it became apparent that dredged wetlands were not recovering as expected, and laws were passed to ban such dredging.
Stone causeways were also built in wetlands areas to avoid such dredging, but they too were determined to be environmentally intrusive.
The industry thus adopted the practice of building a temporary bridge into the wetlands for the purpose of enabling heavy equipment to reach the job site. Although such bridges require pile driving, it was found that the small footprint of a pile caused no permanent damage to the wetlands, i.e., the wetlands were observed to recover quickly when the temporary piles were removed.
The primary drawback to the temporary bridge solution to the wetlands conservation problem is that such temporary bridges, since they must carry very heavy loads, can be quite expensive and time-consuming to build even though they are temporary structures that are removed when the main roadway or bridge is completed.
Thus there is a need for a temporary bridge structure that can be assembled quickly from low cost materials but which can support extremely heavy loads.
There is also a need for a temporary bridge structure that can be quickly disassembled as well when no longer needed.
However, in view of the art considered as a whole at the time the present invention was made, it was not obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art how the needed structure could be provided.